[suryakamal]

Strange what people do and why? Thanks to your patience and love for the frog you could fix.
Last month, some one removed few letters from the label - One letter from Hyundai and two from Tucson :(
I don't know if I can source somewhere. I searched online and no luck. Any leads?

[mayankk]

Quandary, quandary, quandary.
I had more or less made up my mind to sell the Tucson and the fiesta.
The fiesta is not getting much running, and I cannot stand letting her go to the ground. However, my wife has started driving it, and the ford is a finicky beast. I know how to handle her, but as soon as the driving style changes, she throws a fit. Since its a school pick and drop, I dont want my wife to get stuck somewhere with an angry car and a slowly-getting-pissed 3 year old. There is an i10 grand thing that she will be using in some days. Thats another story.

I was looking for a 2011-13 storme and found some for about 6-8 lacs.
The plan is to sell both, and get the storme.
Madness begins. In my weekend trip to lansdowne, I found myself smiling on many an occasion, it was just a such a gentle, brutish drive!
Should I sell of the fiesta, get maybe 1-1.5 lacs for it and inject that into the Tucson?
Remember, the tooky is delhi registered in 2005. Is it worth it?
She drives beautifully, and all niggles are minor. But the waiting period for parts is a bit too much now. A standard wait for parts starts from a week to month. So I think the Safari will be easier to maintain around the country. Space wise, the Tucson has more as far as seating goes.
Exclusivity, nothing like it(unfortunate at times)
What to do??????

Originally Posted by suryakamal

Strange what people do and why? Thanks to your patience and love for the frog you could fix.
Last month, some one removed few letters from the label - One letter from Hyundai and two from Tucson :(
I don't know if I can source somewhere. I searched online and no luck. Any leads?

Let me ask my mech if he can source it. I would suggest OE only. The aftermarket things become black in absolutely no time.

[ashis89]

Originally Posted by mayankk

Exclusivity, nothing like it(unfortunate at times)
What to do??????

If you think sensibly, it might be the right time to move to a "mainstream" car. There are two uncertainties, one is it being 11+ year old and the second is the long wait for parts. Especially, if you have gone out for a long trip and you face a breakdown, you won't get the right parts at the right time. So, Storme makes a better sense.

Might I suggest another idea, especially for your Fiesta. How about selling this one and buying another pre-owned but relatively newer (lesser run) example of the same car. You can get one by investing hardly a lakh over the price for your Fiesta. You can look at the T-Jet too. In this way, you will be rotating your garage with newer but pre-owned cars every 3-4 years. And you are saved from the depreciation hit too.
PS: Your idea of a Storme is along the above lines.

PPS: A couple of days back, I appreciated the way you maintained these rare but wonderful cars and here I am supporting/suggesting the idea of replacing them.
Like it is rightly said, you have to move on.

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by ashis89

Especially, if you have gone out for a long trip and you face a breakdown, you won't get the right parts at the right time.

That is precisely what I worry.
The tooky has been fantastically reliable, and I travel a lot. The one time it broke down, it was in delhi But what if?

As for the fiesta, I will not be replacing her, since the i10 is coming in as the second car, exclusively for the missus. Migrating the ecosystem between cars takes a long time. Sunglasses, bottles, ipods, pendrives, etc etc. This is why she remains parked for a week, and then gets to run for about 2 days, before the tooky gets taken out again.
I have fixed both cars up as much as they can be, but I do think its time to explore. One of the points of a used car garage is that you can sell off without worryng too much about dep etc.

[mayankk]

One of the biggest issues with buying a used car is most of the parts which have a fixed life give up after having lived a fruitful youth somewhere else. This winter, it was the cooling coil that went. Cheap though. 6k.
This summer, at a Tucson near you, HELL FREEZES OVER!!!
Kid you not, I haven't even felt the heat. Are the summers here yet???

Anyway, got a service done as well, and it seems that the brake pads will need to be replaced at the next one. Meantime, the Tooky rolls on. Took a trip to Chail, all in a flat 900 kms. Figures are 1000 kms for 87 liters of diesel, for a bronze medal at 11.5 kmpl. I dont care, though!

[mayankk]

Withgreat trepidation, I took her to Spiti. Every day was a new challenge, what with the fog,no roads, and the nullahs which flowed with renewed zest owing to the rains. All I can say is that the old girl performed flawlessly, apart from one puncture. It just blew my mind, especially when she floated over inclines that were essentially waterfalls!! Hat, it is doffed.
Thread will come up shortly, but here's a picture:

[mayankk]

The thread for the Spiti trip is here.

[mayankk]

After a lot of seesawing, I have finally decided to retain the Tucson. So, I spent some time over at my mechanics, had him fix the minor niggles right there in front of me. Oh, and I also painted the rims black in his paintshop. However, when the tyres came off, I found how bad the tyres had gone off. It seems there was major camber and toe issues, and all the tyres had now become threadbare from the inside out. SO I painted the rims, and went off and bought new continentals for 9200 a pop, minus 500 for older tyres, per tyre.
The guys fixed the camber and toe issues as well for an additional 1000 bucks. Looking good!!


Heres how badly the tyres had worn:



This was the machines results about the toe and camber:


The wheels pre and post:



Some random clicks of the wheels and tyres on the car:

[mayankk]

The new tyres are drastically different in character from the Nankangs. Surprisingly, the new ones are bumpier when trying to traverse over broken roads at slower speeds, but a bit higher and they sort of smoothen the ride out throughout. The nankangs were absorbing at any speed. Though they were not very grippy in corners
The fixing up of the alignment and other details of the tyres and wheels has translated into an EXTREMELY composed ride at "any" speed.
This was seen over the last weekend over a trip to Mandawa. 600 odd kilometres through the villages of rajasthan, and she made me smile yet again. All in all, the decision to sell is being postponed day by day. Also, a fan of the exclusivity"....

[mayankk]

So recently I was home for s few weeks, and the i10 was doing 100% duties since it had the child seat. In those weeks, the battery dried up, god knows how. One fine day, tried to start the tucson up, and it refused. There was no water in it. Had it filled, got it jumped, ,and drove for about 30 kms, and still no charge. Batterybhai gave me an amaron for 5300 rupees, and she lives.
In these weeks, I had been using the i10, and had forgotten about the bullying power of the size and the rattling diesel motor .
All is well as far as the autos, e-rickshaws and the vikrams of noida are concerned.

[mayankk]

Pocket heavy update.
After the Spiti trip, the old girl has not really had a check up apart from one service and some niggles.
I have given up on Raj, and was in touch with world of service. Howver, there's a new guy opened up just across my house, called Motofixers. The reviews on google were good, and the workshop was well equipped when I visited them. So I dropped her off there with instructions for a service, full inside and out cleanup and a "noise elimination" from the bum of the beast.
Turns out I need new rear shocks bearing and tie-rods. So I suppose Spiti was not as unforgiving as I believed it to be. . All in, something in the range of 50k this outing to the mechanic cost me. I do hope Motofixers turns out to be good.
I should get her back today, and will post updates as well as a review on the guys for people around sector 104 in noida

[mayankk]

Update after almost a year.
Recently got the car serviced and fixed for small and niggling issues that had been present since the Spiti drive.
There was a lot rattling from all around, which was to be expected, and I had not been getting it fixed, thinking that I will in any case be forced to dispose of her soon. However, I had a drive to Chandigarh coming up, and it did not feel right to abuse her for such a long drive without some care. So off it went to an FNG who I am hoping to cultivate. The work involved - apart from a full service - replacement of front shocks, Tie rod change, rear hatch and rear glass rubbers fixed Shock mounts, small tiddly bits like switches and all to be fixed. He billed me 20k. He also fixed a jugaad rear wiper, but it "declined" on the way the Chandigarh, as can be seen in the picture
However, that 35k, and about 1 week at the mechanic has made a world of difference. On the RC, there's still about a year left, and I never take her to Delhi, so I can run it quite easily. And there is no car I would rather have on the highway or for trips. She has a knack of allowing me to get into tough spots, and get me out of them.


One weird issue I faced was on the EPE, if I ran at more than the legal speed limit plus 30 . She started to heat up. However, as soon as I brought the speed to 120-110, it was all fine. It did not happen at any other speed. While coming back on the EPE, I tried it again, and confirmed that it is at that speed only that this issue is cropping up. I think this may be due to the LED bar installed in the lower grille. I will get it fixed on the bumper in some time, and see.

[mayankk]

Almost a year since the last update.
I have been trying to get the NOC released from Delhi RTO. I had lined up a buyer and everything in the designated district allowed by the "honorable" NGT. However, my car is in the list of vehicles that were 10+ years when the NGT order came. At that time, the RTOs had blanket deregistered all vehicles that were more than 10 years old. Reversing that process to get NOC issued would take another 15 days, but when I was in the RTO, i only had 10 days left for expiry of my RC. So I went back home and contacted various scrap dealers, even Cero.
However, now the Govt has extended the registrations of all cars that were expiring in the Covid lockdown to 31st of December 2020. So I am trying to get the registration problem fixed, and take it down to UP for selling. However, the local rto official has said that it would cost me 1L rupees to get the car reregistered in UP, and that’s not a bribe, that’s official charges as per value of car. This surprised me, because the car is worth less than that. Of course, IDV is about 3 Lac, but 1 Lac tax is still a bit too much.

Anyhow, due to the extension of the expiry, I decided to head out to Lucknow for a farewell-ish drive. However, on the way back, the car overheated, and when I checked, the coolant reservoir cap was on, but not tight. There was no water/coolant. I waited for the engine to cool down, and put in some water when the guage was below mid-way. Heard a sizzle, and suddenly there was a huge pool of water and coolant below the car. Something had let go near the water pump. So I was stranded on the ALE, and had to be towed back to Lucknow, about 60 kms without power steering, brakes, or AC in 40+ degrees.
Found a long lost family acquaintance and his mechanic. Apparently there is some warping on the head, and the water pump is gone. Both will be shipped from Delhi.

I am trying my best to avoid getting the car scrapped, and already have the next car on the backburner. Ownership is getting very difficult, because the primary purpose of a big car is touring, which I cannot do anymore with any kind of faith. However, the heart does not agree to get it crushed.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the only way forward.
Tsk....

[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by mayankk

I am trying my best to avoid getting the car scrapped, and already have the next car on the backburner. Ownership is getting very difficult, because the primary purpose of a big car is touring, which I cannot do anymore with any kind of faith. However, the heart does not agree to get it crushed.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the only way forward. Tsk..

We sold a 9 year old car, and one that was a part of my growing up years, as painful as that was because you get used to the car so much, I personally learnt that we shouldn't love the car, we should love the memories we made with it.

Eventually we're all just a bunch of memories, living in a void. What comforted me a little was that we went down to the same Hyundai showroom and bought its bigger cousin to carry on its brand legacy, hope you do the same as well (assuming you like the brand).

The first gen Tucson has been well received and loved, many people are still holding on to it, yours did its job it was supposed to do, very well, but going by the issues you're narrating, it seems that it has reached a point where all it can do is short trips, requiring periodic maintenance and repair even then. Rest is your call.

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

. Rest is your call.

I know. I am not keeping her, but I am trying to avoid getting it scrapped. However, the only option available seems to be that.